The largest research expedition of its kind near the site of Deepwater Horizon incident

July 23, 2012

Scientists have embarked on a 3-week expedition aboard the R/V Walton Smith in the Gulf of Mexico to understand how surface ocean currents near the site of the Deepwater Horizon influence the fate and transport of oil/dispersants, like those from the 2010 spill. In other words, they will investigate where pollutants travel, and how fast they get there. This experiment is an essential step in understanding the elusive surface ocean currents that transport pollutants.

This unprecedented expedition marks the first time that a study of this magnitude will map the relatively unknown surface currents found in the GoM. In the past, only a handful of monitoring devices were set adrift along the currents. This summer, more than 300 custom-made buoys known as "drifters" will be released during the Grand Lagrangian Deployment (GLAD.)

"In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill it became clear that understanding the various scales of oceanic currents and flows lies at the very heart of being able to improve our understanding and prediction of oil spills," explained Dr. Tamay Ӧzgökmen, University of Miami (UM) Professor and Director of the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbons in the Environment (CARTHE), a project funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). "In this case we are like detectives uncovering clues and following the 'trail' to find out exactly where pollutants might go."

UM Professor and Chief Scientist Brian Haus will oversee the release of drifters from UM's 96-foot catamaran, the R/V Walton Smith. "The drifters will collect a wealth of oceanic information that will be plugged into predictive models to help us better understand the role of near-surface ocean flows in spreading and dispersing materials in the marine environment," said Haus.

The GLAD experiment is one of two inaugural CARTHE research expeditions this summer. Haus leads the drifters' deployment, while Dr. Brad Rosenheim at Tulane University led sediment and water sampling along select Florida Panhandle beaches aboard the RV Pelican earlier this summer. Data from Rosenheim's experiment will help scientists confirm the presence or absence of oil and the type of weathering that has occurred to the oil in both the sedimentary and shore-line water environment.

For a few months following the GLAD experiment, the drifters will continue to drift along the Gulf of Mexico currents. All CARTHE data derived during the project will be shared with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to improve their search and rescue operations.

"This joint research operation between the USCG and CARTHE combines our expertise and resources  it is a partnership that can truly save lives," said Art Allen, a physical oceanographer with the USCG Office of Search and Rescue in Washington, D.C. Allen worked with CARTHE researcher Bruce Dr. Lipphardt from the University of Delaware to release five drifters by aircraft. The drifters deployed by USCG aircraft in advance of the GLAD experiment helped CARTHE researchers to identify appropriate locations for the larger deployment.

CARTHE's field work at sea, combined with laboratory experiments and the development of interconnected modeling systems, will produce a comprehensive, four dimensional description of the oil/dispersant fate and transport in the GoM, as well as its impact on other coastal environments across all relevant time and space scales. "Our research goes well beyond the Deepwater Horizon incident," Ӧzgökmen said. "These experiments are complex and painstaking, but the results will be key to generating vast improvements in how and where emergency responders are deployed in the event of another oil spill or at-sea emergency."

More information:
The CARTHE program includes twenty-six principal investigators from twelve research institutions in eight states. Together these scientists are engaged in novel research through the development of a suite of integrated models and state-of-the-art computations that bridge the scale gap between existing models and natural processes. For more information about CARTHE, please visit www.carthe.org or like us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/carthe.gomri

Related Stories

A study released by the Minerals Management Service today examines the circulation in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and sheds new light on the behavior of the Loop Current (LC) and Loop Current Eddies (LCEs), the relation ...

Many questions remain about the fate and environmental impact of the marine oil caused by the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform. A predictive model based on engineering ...

Since the explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, scientists have been working to understand the impact that this disaster has had on the environment. For months, crude ...

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in spring 2010 is the largest oil spill in the history of the United States, with more than 200 million gallons of crude oil released at about 1,500 m. depth off the Mississippi Delta in the ...

Recommended for you

At the end of the Pleistocene period, approximately 12,800 years ago—give or take a few centuries—a cosmic impact triggered an abrupt cooling episode that earth scientists refer to as the Younger Dryas.

In a new assessment of nine state-of-the-art climate model simulations provided by major international modeling centers, Michael Rawlins at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues found broad disagreement in ...

New research confirms that the land under the Chesapeake Bay is sinking rapidly and projects that Washington, D.C., could drop by six or more inches in the next century—adding to the problems of sea-level rise.

The world's deserts may be storing some of the climate-changing carbon dioxide emitted by human activities, a new study suggests. Massive aquifers underneath deserts could hold more carbon than all the plants on land, according ...

Wildfires in California's fabled Sierra Nevada mountain range are increasingly burning high-elevation forests, which historically have seldom burned, reports a team of researchers led by the John Muir Institute of the Environment ...

0 comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.